As White as Snow Page 12

  A quintet playing a dramatic opera score faltered as Lumikki dashed past them. She heard them switch on the fly to a lighter piece. The Beatles singing about a little girl, admonishing her to run for her life.

  Gee, thanks. I actually am running for my life here, Lumikki managed to think just before she collided with a plump German woman who’d stepped to the side at just the wrong moment.

  “Mein Gott!” the woman exclaimed.

  “Entschuldigung!” Lumikki dug out from somewhere in her vocabulary and continued running.

  Luckily, the German woman also slowed her pursuer, who shoved her roughly aside without an apology in any language.

  As she struggled to speed up and felt the sweat streaming down her calves, Lumikki found she could no longer weave through the crowds of people as well as she had at first.

  A Japanese bride was being photographed in the middle of the bridge. Lumikki wasn’t sure whether the photo shoot was genuine or staged. The bride’s gown had an insanely impractical long train, which Lumikki had to vault over at the last moment. A couple of seconds later, the sound of ripping satin revealed that her pursuer hadn’t been so nimble.

  Lumikki gained a small lead.

  Her next obstacle was a group of Americans with a tour guide. Lumikki looked at the wall of people in horror, but then saw one narrow break she just barely managed to slip through sideways.

  “And as you can see, here we have a statue of a—running girl—I mean . . .”

  Lumikki didn’t hang around to hear how the guide got his commentary back on track. The hit man had plowed through the wall of Americans like an icebreaker and shrunk her lead to almost nothing. Lumikki felt the heat threatening to cloud her mind. Her mouth was bone-dry. She felt like she’d never drunk a drop of water in her life.

  Lumikki felt a tremor in her legs. Her elbow bumped a caricature artist’s hand just as he was sketching the nose of a man with a dark beard. Well, a bolder nose would probably improve the picture. The crush of people forced Lumikki to the side of the bridge. She had to reach out and push off a statue’s plaque to avoid ramming her side painfully into the railing. The metal plate was shiny from thousands of people touching it. Saint John of Nepomuk.

  A sainted Czech martyr who was executed by being thrown off a bridge.

  You never knew what little things would stick in your head from reading a travel guide. Lumikki also remembered that touching the statue was said to bring good luck and ensure that the person would return to Prague again one day.

  Good luck was just what she needed now. She heard her pursuer’s heavy breathing, and it was far too close. On the other hand, she wasn’t at all sure she’d ever want to come back to Prague if she made it out alive.

  Lumikki was almost at the other end of the bridge already. Her heart was banging against her ribs, trying desperately to pump oxygen to her muscles, which were on the verge of complete collapse. Lumikki felt so hot it was like her whole body was boiling.

  A glass player. No way. Ahead of her, Lumikki saw an old, frail man intently playing dozens of equally fragile-looking wine glasses arrayed in three levels in front of him. Lumikki strained with all her might, concentrating her balance to juke to the left around the man and pass him safely without breaking a single glass.

  The old man, as if made from frosted glass himself, raised his hand in thanks.

  A moment too soon.

  Lumikki heard behind her as her pursuer’s heavy steps careened after her and the old man cried out as first one glass and then a second, a third, and a forth shattered. The domino effect sent each breaking glass tumbling into the next, causing a new explosion of shards. Lumikki’s pursuer screamed and cursed. It was clear he’d injured himself and lost significant ground.

  Lumikki rushed off the bridge, vowing never to cross it again by choice.

  The knowledge that her pursuer probably wouldn’t be able to catch up with her now instantly made Lumikki feel better. Her legs found new strength, and the hot air didn’t parch her lungs. She couldn’t feel the blisters caused by her sandals, and the flow of sweat was pleasantly cooling.

  She ran to the stairs leading to St. Vitus Cathedral and started loping up them two at a time. The joy of escape gave her heels wings. She would be late for her rendezvous by a few minutes, but she would make it there alive. That hadn’t been a given.

  “Go, go, go!” some young boys sitting on the stairs yelled in encouragement.

  She glanced back, even though she was already sure. No one was following.

  Now she just hoped Lenka would be waiting for her.

  Two little girls looked back from the mirror. One larger, one smaller. Sisters. They held each other by the hand.

  The vision faded before Lumikki’s eyes. Now, in the mirror, she saw herself and Lenka. They had come to the women’s restroom at the same café from their first meeting. Lumikki figured this wouldn’t be the first place her pursuer would think to look for them, even if he somehow managed to track her here. And he probably wouldn’t take the risk of attracting attention by marching into the ladies’ room.

  Lumikki’s shirt looked grotesque. Red on white. She could have come straight from a slaughterhouse. The barista at the café had looked at her with raised eyebrows, but apparently Lumikki’s expression had been sufficiently grim that the woman decided not to say anything.

  Lenka shook her head and tears ran down her cheeks.

  “I can’t leave,” she said.

  She had been repeating this refrain the whole time, even though Lumikki had tried to convince her that if Lenka didn’t go with her now, she might die.

  “Your life will be in danger if you go back there. Adam is insane and he’s going to kill all of you.”

  Lumikki tried to keep her voice steady even though she wanted to scream the words.

  “We shall receive eternal life,” Lenka argued.

  In frustration, Lumikki slammed her palms on the sink counter.

  How were you supposed to talk to these brainwashed lunatics so they would understand?

  “You probably will receive eternal life if that’s what you believe,” Lumikki sighed. “But what’s the rush? You’ll still get it in sixty years when you’ve lived a long, full life and then die happily of old age.”

  “I can’t decide the time of my death. I have to accept whatever comes from above,” Lenka said. The words came mechanically, like a recording that had been played many times.

  “You don’t have to. You can make your own decision.”

  “If I leave, I won’t have anything. I don’t have anything. I don’t have anyone.”

  Lumikki took Lenka’s hand. In the mirror, she looked her straight in the eyes.

  “You have me. These cult members aren’t even related to you. I’m your sister. I’ll help you.”

  Lenka just shook her head and wept even more uncontrollably.

  “No. It’s not true,” she said.

  “It is. I promise you.”

  “No, it isn’t. I lied to you. I made up the whole sister story. It’s a fairy tale.”

  Lumikki let go of Lenka’s hand. Suddenly, she felt weak. She hadn’t seen this coming. Not that Lenka had lied to her, and especially not how much it hurt. With one sentence, the decisive piece of the puzzle that was her past had been snatched away, and the hole it left behind felt bigger and emptier than ever before. Only now did Lumikki understand how deeply she had hoped Lenka would help her uncover the secret that made her family so disconnected from each other.

  Her sister had been taken away.

  “I spied on you,” Lenka said.

  “Why?” Lumikki asked.

  Now she was the one who sounded like a machine. A veil lay over her thoughts, but her mouth apparently still produced intelligible words.

  “I knew my father spoke Swedish. Mother told me that. But she wouldn’t say anything else about him. Not even his name. And I overheard you speaking Swedish to some tourists.”

  Lumikki remembered. A group of
Swedish retirees had tried to ask her directions in halting English, so Lumikki took pity on them and replied in Swedish, which made the grannies and grandpas so overjoyed that they wanted to buy her ice cream. Lumikki declined. She didn’t want to get roped into acting as their tour guide and map reader.

  “I followed you and got your name from the hostel. I eavesdropped on you when you were talking on the phone to someone who you first called ‘Peter’ and then ‘Dad.’ ”

  Lumikki remembered the call too. Her dad had answered the phone so formally—“Peter Andersson here”—that Lumikki had echoed it teasingly. Her dad had explained that he hadn’t been able to see the caller’s name on his phone in the bright sunlight, and that was why he answered that way.

  “But why?” Lumikki managed to ask, even though the words nearly stuck in her throat.

  She couldn’t remember anyone ever having lied to her so successfully. Maybe she had just wanted to find that missing puzzle piece too much.

  “Because I don’t actually have anyone close to me in the White Family. Everyone else has someone who’s more ‘theirs’ than anyone else’s. And I’ve always wanted a sister. I thought that if I had a sister I wouldn’t be so alone. Even a made-up sister. I’ve been building the story of having a sister for years. It felt so true I almost started believing it myself. And when I saw you, I knew instantly. You’re my fairy-tale sister.”

  Lumikki listened to Lenka’s words and understood them, but she felt completely cold. All she could think about was how Lenka had betrayed her.

  Lumikki didn’t say anything. Lenka was silent. Two young women in the mirror. Complete strangers.

  “So you understand now that I really don’t have anyone or anything. Nothing but the White Family and my faith.”

  Lumikki didn’t have the energy to argue anymore. She didn’t have the energy to try to convince Lenka. Let her do whatever she wanted. It was none of Lumikki’s business. It never had been.

  Lenka touched Lumikki lightly on the shoulder and walked out. Lumikki didn’t even watch her go.

  She just stood there staring at herself and her bloodstained shirt. She remembered her dream. The bloody tears. Du är min syster. Had that just been a fairy tale too? A nightmare? A lie?

  The woman grabbed the cell phone. There was no time to waste. When the other side picked up, she got straight to the point.

  “The girl is still in the game. And she might ruin everything. We have to move up the schedule. It has to happen today.”

  “Today? I’m not sure we can—”

  “We can. We have to. The machinery is all in place. I can set it in motion anytime. You just have to be able to handle your part. Just say you received a commandment from a higher power. Then you aren’t even lying.”

  “Lying has never been a problem for me.”

  “We’re different that way. I don’t want to tell lies. I want to tell true stories. They’re more interesting.”

  “And I lie to give you your true story.”

  “That’s what you’re paid for.”

  “Maybe in this life, but what about on the other side?”

  “Who wants to think that far ahead?”

  “Fine. So, today. Theoretically, everything is ready. All we need is a little spark—”

  “—and the bonfire will ignite. Just like it should. Seven o’clock sharp?”

  “Sounds good.”

  Vera Sováková stroked the surface of her desk. The evening news would be full of this and only this. On her channel first and foremost. With the deepest, most thorough coverage. And the next day in the newspapers—her newspapers. For weeks to come. Big pictures, tears, in-depth interviews, expert analysis. An unimaginable tragedy with only a tiny glimmer of hope. A hero story.

  She didn’t worry about whether her actions were immoral. Of course they were. But morality didn’t sell newspapers, and especially not advertising space. The more readers and viewers, the more ads and the more ad money to make even better news. Even bigger and more touching stories for people who hungered for emotion and excitement. Not from fiction, but from true stories.

  Vera Sováková knew that she wasn’t the only one in the industry with a flexible relationship to morality. Paying for news, hacking phones, firing disobedient reporters, lying in wait for politicians to make even the smallest slip—all they needed was a single wrong word. Working in the media meant all that and more. Maybe she took things a little farther than most. But who knew? Vera Sováková wasn’t prone to believing conspiracy theories, but sometimes big news stories and human tragedies seemed to line up surprisingly well with the economic travails of certain media companies.

  Was coincidence always coincidence? Or were others pushing pieces on the chessboard too?

  “How do you intend to make sure your hero doesn’t go rogue?” the man asked. “That he doesn’t act too soon?”

  Vera knew that her hero pawn had been the biggest risk factor from the beginning. She had needed to manipulate his feelings and actions as precisely and subtly as possible. Vera had found the interviews, she had offered the information, and she had also arranged for his house to be ransacked “as thoroughly as possible,” as she’d put it. Vera didn’t even think of him as a man, but rather as a little puppet whose strings she could pull. A hero who believed he’d figured everything out alone, but who, in reality, had received each piece of information at just the moment Vera wanted him to.

  “The instructions I give him will be precise. And believe me, he has enough ambition that he’ll do exactly what I say. I’ll convince him that the police and rescue teams will show up in time. He wants adventure. He wants to be the face of this story. I have to hang up now. The face is here.”

  Vera Sováková hung up the phone just as Jiři Hašek knocked on her door for their meeting.

  Everything went dark. All she could see was blackness, and Lumikki liked it. For a moment, she hoped the darkness would go on and on, and that she could just breathe it in without thinking about anything, without even thinking about all the people around her. The stage lights came up, though, revealing to the audience the shadows of a thick, dark forest where one could easily lose their way. The fairy tale could begin.

  When Lenka left the café, Lumikki sat for a while in defeat. Then she set her phone on silent, because she couldn’t deal with anything or anyone bothering her, and she set out into the streets.

  Lenka had lied.

  Lenka wasn’t her sister.

  The secret hadn’t been revealed, and nothing had been solved. Lumikki had just been the victim of a slightly unbalanced woman’s delusions. The truth was numbing. Lumikki couldn’t even feel angry at Lenka. No regret. Just apathy and emptiness.

  It didn’t make any difference. It didn’t make any difference if she never saw Lenka again. It didn’t make any difference if the whole cult killed themselves. It was all the same to her. It wasn’t any of her business now. She had been used as a pawn in a strange, sick mental game. She had been tricked.

  Like a sleepwalker, Lumikki wandered into the old city, and on a whim, she walked through an open door that led down a set of stairs. A basement theater where a shadow play was just starting.

  She might as well spend her final days in Prague acting like a tourist and going to films and plays. That’s what she came for in the first place. To discover the city alone, to be alone, to do whatever happened to feel interesting at that moment—alone. In reality, though, Lumikki knew that what she really wanted was escape from her own thoughts and all the trauma she’d been through. Just for a moment, she wanted something different, something beautiful.

  Lumikki bought a ticket and sat down in the back row on a wooden bench covered with threadbare velvet upholstery. The seats were only half full, so she had the row to herself. That was good. A girl who stank of sweat with dried blood down the front of her shirt probably wasn’t anyone’s favorite idea of a theater companion.

  The shadow play was performed entirely without words. It wove its s
tory for the audience using only music and shadows.

  Once upon a time, there were two princesses who were the best friends in the world. They ran hand in hand through the forest, escaping beasts and monsters. They protected each other and saved each other time and time again. They combed each other’s long locks and told each other stories. No one and nothing could separate them.

  Lumikki watched as the shadows changed shapes and made the princesses laugh and leap over a brook to get away. They were so alive, even though they were nothing more than dark silhouettes against a light background. Lumikki emptied her mind and immersed herself in the fairy tale being told. She succeeded in shutting out Lenka, Jiři, the killer, the cult, and all of Prague. She succeeded in shutting out the rest of the audience.

  There were only Lumikki and the shadows.

  One day, one of the princesses disappeared. The remaining princess looked and looked for her, running back and forth through the forest, weeping and wailing. But she couldn’t find the other princess. A year passed, then another, and eventually, seven long years had come and gone. The sun and the moon crossed the sky thousands of times. The princess did not laugh anymore. She just spent all her days sitting in the forest singing a sad song they had once sung happily together.

  Then one day, the princess learned that far, far away, beyond seven mountains and seven seas, was a tower where a princess was imprisoned. A terrible dragon guarded the tower and no one could save the princess. After hearing this, the first princess traveled past the seven mountains and seven seas to see whether this was her long-lost friend.

  When she arrived at the tower, the dragon was perched upon its peak spouting white flames that had burned all the land around completely black. The princess decided to wait until the dragon fell asleep. Finally, the sky darkened and the stars appeared. The princess tried valiantly to keep her eyes open, but she fell asleep before the dragon did.

  The princess awoke to someone singing the same sad song she had been singing for the past seven years. She looked up to the tower window and saw her friend. The princesses both cried for joy when they recognized each other. The princess who had arrived from afar shouted that she would save the prisoner. But the imprisoned princess replied that the time was not right because the dragon could appear at any moment and consume her with fire. Nevertheless, the princess knew that they had promised to always protect each other, and she set out to climb the tower.